# Home Remote vs HomeWatch

The clearest difference is price: HomeWatch at Free against Home Remote's $1.99. HomeWatch also leads on device support (6 vs 4). Home Remote's advantage is review sentiment (82% vs 60%) and ratings volume (25 vs 4). On rating, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

HomeWatch is free to download; Home Remote costs $1.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for Home Remote against 4.8 for HomeWatch. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Home Remote has 25 ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 82% of Home Remote's written reviews are positive against 60% of HomeWatch's.

Home Remote ships an update monthly, HomeWatch every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 6, 2026 and July 7, 2026 respectively.

## The numbers

| Metric | Home Remote | HomeWatch |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Price | $1.99 | **Free** |
| Rating | **[4.8 (25 ratings)](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/home-remote/id926193671/reviews)** | [4.8 (4 ratings)](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/homewatch/id1622801480/reviews) |
| Number of ratings | **25** | 4 |
| Positive reviews | **82.4% of reviews** | 60.0% of reviews |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Ads | No | No |
| Update frequency | **Monthly** | Every 2 months |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Size | 30 MB | 64 MB |
| Requires iOS | **12.0** | 15.6 |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV | **iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch** |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | [Bouncing Ball Games](https://appshunter.io/developer/310577519) | [Peter Vogels](https://appshunter.io/developer/1622801482) |

## What reviewers say

### Home Remote

[App page](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/home-remote/id926193671)

Consolidate control of your smart home devices with a single, feature-rich application. Automate actions with schedules, location triggers, and voice commands. Supports a wide range of popular smart home brands and protocols.

**Highlights:** Unified smart home control, Schedules and geofencing, Voice recognition support, Native support for popular brands, URL calls and TCP/UDP packets, Location triggering with beacons

**Features:** macOS Compatibility, Vision Pro support

**In-app purchases:** none

**What reviewers like**

- 🚀 Quick access to controls from notification center/today screen
- ⌚ Apple Watch integration and voice control
- 🔧 Highly customizable and flexible for multiple home automation systems
- 🌍 Excellent geofencing functionality
- 💬 Outstanding developer support and responsiveness

**What reviewers complain about**

- 🐛 Broken after iOS updates (iOS 9, 12, 13 compatibility issues)
- ❌ No Apple Watch support in recent versions
- 📚 Poor documentation and confusing setup process
- 🚫 Lack of developer support/communication
- 🌐 Only works on WiFi, not on cellular data

**Reported bugs**

- App crashes after iOS updates
- Geofencing stopped working after iOS 12
- MiLight compatibility broken in recent versions
- Brightness settings not working with older bridges
- Preset corruption when editing multiple actions

**Requested features**

- HomeKit and Siri integration
- Google Home integration
- Toggle buttons with visual status indicators
- Brightness slider in color picker
- Support for newer MiLight bridge versions (v6, iBox 2)


### HomeWatch

[App page](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/homewatch/id1622801480)

Monitor and control your HomeKit devices with a glanceable status display. This app offers customizable views for rooms, scenes, and individual devices across Apple platforms, including widgets and menu bar items.

**Highlights:** Glanceable room status with color-coded indicators, Control scenes and devices within rooms, View camera feeds, weather, and website content, Customizable home and lock-screen widgets, Menu bar items for Mac with real-time updates, Extensive interface customization options

**In-app purchases:** none


## Frequently asked questions

### Is Home Remote free?

Home Remote costs $1.99, with no in-app purchases.

### Is HomeWatch free?

HomeWatch is free to download, with no in-app purchases.

### Which has better reviews, Home Remote or HomeWatch?

Home Remote is rated higher. Home Remote averages 4.8 out of 5 from 25 ratings, while HomeWatch averages 4.8 from 4 ratings.

### Do Home Remote or HomeWatch have ads?

Neither Home Remote nor HomeWatch shows ads.

### Which is updated more often, Home Remote or HomeWatch?

Home Remote ships an update monthly, and HomeWatch every 2 months. Most recently, Home Remote was updated on September 6, 2026 and HomeWatch on July 7, 2026.

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*Compared by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/) from daily US App Store data. Review summaries are generated from verbatim App Store reviews.*